German orders picked up in June. After falling sharply in May foreign orders surged in June by enough to make up for the May drop.
Domestic orders remain in a funk, rising by just 4.6% over 12-months compared to a rise of 13.2% for foreign orders.
Sequentially domestic orders remain weak while foreign orders are on the rise after a period of unevenness.

Manufacturing sales are slipping in the Zone. The three month annualized rate of growth for sales is just 1.1%.
Consumer durables sales are off at a 14.5% pace. Capital goods sales are also off at a 6.4% pace; both of these sectors
have gradually worsened. Intermediate goods sales are slowing sequentially but sales are still positive even over three-months.

Both domestic and foreign orders are locked in a down trend for growth rates. Even so the trends for domestic and
foreign orders are on two different tracks. Since the European economies show such signs of weakness, the US has been
weak and China has been slowing it’s a bit hard to take the German ‘foreign orders’ series to the bank. The sharp one
month rise in orders of 13.7% in the wake of 6% drop in May is still huge. Orders still average about 3.9% growth over
two months when so many economies are slowing. Europe’s debt problems make it hard to think that this sort of foreign
order strength can hold up.